krementz
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: lost 150GB

I have been cleaning up and deleting a lot of excess files. My free space has not been improving much. I have about 150GB discrepancy. Looking in Finder with hidden folders showing totals about 431 GB used, 68 GB free. "About this Mac" similar numbers, with 222 GB in "Other". Audio, Movies, Photos, Apps and Backups are consistent with Finder Backup consistent. Whatsize confirms these numbers, too.

 

However, adding up the actual details of Finder (showing hidden files, logged in as Admin, opening every folder to make sure it recalculates sizes)  show only 285 GB used, 214 GB free. The difference is 146GB. What happened?

 

I have emptied Trash, run Disk Utility for permissions and verify, turned off Mobileupdates, rebooted, logged in as other two users to empty trash, etc., booted into Safe Mode, deleted excess swap files, looked at /Volumes, deleted caches, etc.

 

Spotlight-V100 is less than 1GB, Private+System+Library is 32 GB, and included in the totals above.

 

Where else can the files be? Evil malware? Super double hidden? Never ran Bittorent, Tor, as a server to the Internet, etc.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013), OS X Mavericks (10.9.5), 500 GB SSD

Posted on Mar 7, 2015 4:24 PM

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krementz

Q: lost 150GB

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  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Mar 7, 2015 5:12 PM in response to krementz
    Level 9 (52,793 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 7, 2015 5:12 PM in response to krementz

    To assist in your efforts to reconcile the space used on your MBP HDD, download from the Internet OmniDiskSweeper and Grand Perspective (both free) and open them.  They will display all of your files and the respective sizes.

     

    Ciao.

  • by krementz,

    krementz krementz Mar 7, 2015 9:11 PM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2015 9:11 PM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Thank you. I tried OmniDiskSweeper, which gave me the same results as Whatsize and Finder. Any other suggestions?

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Mar 8, 2015 11:20 AM in response to krementz
    Level 9 (52,793 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 8, 2015 11:20 AM in response to krementz

    Did you run Grand Perspective?

     

    Ciao.

  • by krementz,

    krementz krementz Mar 9, 2015 5:48 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2015 5:48 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    Yes. It shows 140 GB "Other Space" in gray, no details. Same mystery continues.

  • by notcloudy,

    notcloudy notcloudy Mar 9, 2015 6:09 AM in response to krementz
    Level 4 (1,200 points)
    Desktops
    Mar 9, 2015 6:09 AM in response to krementz

    See this thread - problem same as yours - solved by turning off Time Machine. 

     

    Available hard disk space is incorrect reported in Finder

     

    Also, click on the SUPPORT to the Right of People and enter  Maverick Finder - when topics come up - click to see all topics - and yes people have been having problems with Finder and not reporting it to APPLE Support as a bug.

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Mar 9, 2015 6:24 AM in response to krementz
    Level 9 (52,793 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 9, 2015 6:24 AM in response to krementz

    The following images are from my MBP, Disk Utility, System Information>SATA and the display from the Desktop HDD Icon:

    Screen Shot 2015-03-09 at 9.04.33 AM.png

    Screen Shot 2015-03-09 at 9.03.53 AM.png

    Screen Shot 2015-03-09 at 9.04.17 AM.png

    Note that the Capacity and the Space Available is the same on all.  Is that the case with yours?

     

    Ciao.

  • by krementz,

    krementz krementz Mar 9, 2015 7:42 AM in response to OGELTHORPE
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 9, 2015 7:42 AM in response to OGELTHORPE

    All those three programs agree, with about 79 GB available out of 500.

     

    However, in Finder, the column of Sizes totals about 270 GB used, leaving 230 GB. 79 GB is available, leaving 151 GB unaccounted for. I have opened each folder to let it calculate, have all hidden files shown, done all the items mentioned in my first post several times, etc.

     

    Looking at the details from the other programs tried give consistent results, ie, c. 270 GB used by specific files (hidden and shown, all users, etc, and a huge amount "Other".

     

    If I was missing just 10 or 20 GB of undefined "Other", I wouldn't mind. 150 GB is a lot, though.

  • by OGELTHORPE,

    OGELTHORPE OGELTHORPE Mar 9, 2015 11:51 AM in response to krementz
    Level 9 (52,793 points)
    Mac OS X
    Mar 9, 2015 11:51 AM in response to krementz

    First understand what the category OTHER is:

     

    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202867

     

    Do not get obsessed by the name.

     

    When you ran OmniDiskSweeper and Grand Perspective, what were the values for all the data on the SSD?  Was it about 401!GB±  If not, what do they show?

    These are from mine:

    Screen Shot 2015-03-09 at 2.31.23 PM.png

    Screen Shot 2015-03-09 at 2.31.39 PM.png

    In the Grand Perspective display, are there any large prominent blocks?  If so, hover the cursor over them and find out what they are>

     

    Ciao.